Ruzina Cave, located in Pusto Polje near Gacko, has come into the focus of regional and even global archaeological research.
This site includes significant findings from the Paleolithic period. Although the first brief research at this location was carried out back in the late 1980s, the most recent excavations, led by Professor Dusan Mihailovic from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade and Ivana Grujic, director of the Museum of Herzegovina, have brought extraordinary results.
During archaeological research of Ruzina Cave located near Gacko, hundreds of artifacts were found dating from the earliest period of the Stone Age, indicating that the cave was inhabited as far back as the Ice Age, more than 20.000 years ago. Professor Dusan Mihailovic says that this research has already exceeded all expectations, and they are only at the beginning.
“The first results we obtained after 10 days of research are extraordinary. They have far exceeded our expectations. Namely, here we discovered remains of a hunter-gatherer camp from the last Ice Age containing hundreds and hundreds of stone tools. We found a bone tool, we found pigments for coloring the face and clothing. We found numerous animal bones that show what animals they hunted, so now we have an initial insight into their activities in the very habitat, as well as into their settlement model in that period.
These are spectacular sites that attract many tourists, you have Crvena Stijena which is already arranged for visits, you have the Badanj site near Stolac which is also exceptional, and now you have Ruzina Cave. So, people are very interested in seeing these oldest sites,” says Dusan Mihailovic, professor of archaeology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade.
Ivana Grujic, director of the Museum of Herzegovina, says that Ruzina Cave is of exceptional importance for the entire eastern Herzegovina.
“It is also recorded in the archaeological lexicon of BiH, known in science, insufficiently explored, but in this area, everyone knows about it and that is also a good indication that people are participating in the results of our research because they are accepting the new data and are proud, not only of the Middle Ages and antiquity, but they are simply glad to hear that people lived here, hunted and generally inhabited these areas so many thousands of years ago,” said Ivana Grujic.
Local resident Miso Mandic, whose house is located right next to Ruzina Cave, says that this site has long been known in the area, and people used to come there for flints with which they would start a fire.
“I know from before, my father told me that people used to come, looking for flints, back then people smoked pipes, and had a tinderbox, that was the only means to light a fire. Then one Mandic took a bag to the National Museum sometime in the 1980s in Sarajevo, and then they came afterward and examined it,” says local resident Miso Mandic.
The Ruzina Cave archaeological research project will last for 7 years and will bring together leading world institutions involved in various aspects of studying human history, and numerous global universities will also be included to conduct DNA analyses, protein analyses, and other necessary tests, Oslobodjenje writes.
